Monday, April 30, 2007

I have made it my life's work to plug Bigfoot and the Groincrushers, the oh-so-funnily named band I was a member of for about ten minutes in my college days.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I learn from bearded super-patriot Garry Bushell that such a band actually existed, jumping up and down on East London stages going "OI! Oi! Oi!" supporting the legendary, not to mention controversial, 4Skins.

Friday, April 27, 2007

A fair few years ago and in the line of duty, I was sent north of the border to attend a conference.

I was not alone, and went in the company of a chap called Dave, my going as padowan learner to his jedi master. I would watch, learn, grab all the freebies and become an ace at attending conferences in the world of retail rubber goods my own right.

Play this one right, and I'd be flying solo in no time - avoiding the mini-bar, keeping all my receipts and making sure I had a damn good excuse for any late night taxi fares.

The main conference hotel being fully booked (I believe it was a Hilton, or something particularly flashy), our generous employers put us up in a smaller, cheaper establishment on the other side of town. It was, it turned out, a concrete monstrosity with charming views over the railway station, but in the circumstances, beggars can't be choosers.

Finding themselves just outside the main tourist area of the city, and looking to rake in the punters as best they could, the hotel management hosted any number of events to fill the place. Luckily, Dave and I had secured rooms on the top floor, as the din from the bar down below was something to behold, and quite easily drowned out the trains arriving and departing from Waverley station.

If fact, we didn't mind so much - the hotel was merely somewhere to get some sleep at nights, what with the Hilton being closed to us, and we would get up of a morning, have breakfast and not see the place until the late evening.

Alas, on the Thursday, they held a Grab-a-Granny night. Actually, it was billed as an 'Over-40s Dance', but a Grab-a-Granny night it was, and the place was heaving with women of a certain age, their eyes crossed with sexual frustration, and blokes of all ages, their eyes also crossed with frustration of a sexual nature.

I blame myself entirely. I only went into the bar to get a G&T, and before the barman had even asked me my poison, I was beating them off with a stick.

"Och, you're a lovely young one."

"Thanks."

"I bet you'd look even better out of that suit of yours"

"Wha? Gneep!"

And:

"Oh, ignore her, she'll give you the clap. I've got all my own teeth, you know."

"Gneeep!"

It was awful, and not unlike scenes from George Romero's Zombie movies. They were even hammering away in the car park, behind bushes, the works.

And I thought that Edinburgh was such a lovely, genteel city with loads of stuff going on to amuse the more mature visitor. The Castle, The Royal Mile. Bracing walks on the mountains. But no. They just want to screw. Screw anything that moves.

I fled to the sanctuary of the lift, where with luck, I could be in my own room in no time with the patent door wedge (an essential item when working in war zones, I'll have you know) holding the door firmly closed.

But no.

"Going up?"

"Err…Yes. Fifth floor."

"I'd much rather be going down."

Oh. God. No. And she must have been all of seventy years old.

I've been in this situation before. In my youth, the car park lift at the supermarket where I held down a Saturday job stopped between floors, trapping me in the contraption with a lady of advancing years and wandering hands. On that occasion I had begged the Good Lord for deliverance, and He set me free. Tonight, it appeared he had other things on His mind.

She didn't even bother with the traditional - and I thought obligatory - "Oh, it's so hot in here!" before popping them out for inspection.

Before I knew it, I was face-to-face with a pair of pendulous bosooms, of the sort normally seen in documentary footage of remote Amazonian tribes.

"Mwaaaargh!"

"Fancy a bit?"

"Mwaaaaargh! I mean …no thanks. Mwaaaargh!"

"Suit yourself. Homo."

Charming. I swallowed the little bit of sick that had popped up into my mouth, and the doors of the lift swishing open, I fled to my room.

Next morning: "Christ Dave, you look rough."

"Yeah, I had a few to drink, guy."

"How many?"

"Cannae remember. I met this stunner in the lift though."

Oh, Dave.

"Strange, when I came to, she was old enough to be me granny."

Oh, Dave.

Last year, I returned to the same hotel for another conference, the Hilton being completely booked-up yet again.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

As you know, I am a generous sort of person, who will go out of his way to help his fellow human or small fluffy animal in their hour of need. That is why I have taken it upon myself to take part in this important 100 per cent genuine national charitable event.

Big thanks to the pair of derelicts who have already signed up. When the going gets tough, you can always rely on tramps:

Your gift of love will go a long way in the public bar of the Old Castle to help these poor kiddywinks and those puppies rescued from a life of prostitution on the streets of Manila.

Total number of attractive blondes so far: NIL, but rising to one once the lovely Mrs Duck finds out about this little scheme.

Or, you could keep your money and horsewhips in your pocket and vote for one of the following Tales of Mirth and Woe from this ever-dwindling list. Vote-o quote-os from the poor, dead House of Lies:

• Doctors and Nurses: "If you walk into any Texaco petrol station, take all your clothes off and say the secret password ‘Napoleon’, you are rewarded with free unleaded for a year"

• A Trip to Edinburgh: "In an effort to be more socially realistic, one Barbie doll in ten thousand has Tourette’s Syndrome"

• Grand National: "Soylent Green really does exist -- it is sold to an unsuspecting public as Turkish Delight"

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The other day, channel-surfing out of sheer boredom, and came across a particularly violent Tom and Jerry short on cartoon channel Boomerang. Now, as a bit of a connoisseur of all things Tom and Jerry, I thought I'd seen everything that Fred Quimby had ever done in the battle twixt cat and mouse (and sometimes rubber-jowled dog), but this was one which I swear I have never seen before in all my 41 years:

Safety Second, in which Tom, Jerry and Jerry's little cousin Nibbles (or Tuffy, or George. Whatever) do their level best to blow each other up with vast quantities of fireworks by way of a 4th July celebration.

There is red-hot up-the-bott firework action, and Tom gets rather harshly - and with clear malice aforethought - killed to death in a firey explosion as Jerry and Nibbles chuck the firework code out of the window and do for their feline nemesis in no uncertain manner.

It made me do several LOLs, and at least one ROFFLE, and may even have turned the boy Scaryduck Junior away from endless re-runs of Spongebob for at least thirty minutes.

Having never seen this one before - almost certainly to do with a reluctance by broadcasters in this country to show kids arsing about with fireworks and stuffing them inside their nappies - it makes me wonder: are there any other cartoons out there that we've never seen on our screens?

Did Popeye and Bluto ever get it together?

Does the one with Mickey Mouse, in his house, pulling down his trousers actually exist in some vault somewhere with the words NOT FOR BROADCAST plastered all over it?

What about a thirty minute episode of The Flintstones which comprises nothing but Fred having a prolonged hand shandy over Betty Rubble?

It's filth like this that we demand is shown on our screens right now. Did Mary Whitehouse die in vain?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

A few weeks ago, we moved from our luxuriously appointed office that was once the billiard room in a country house to an even more luxuriously appointed room that was once a ballroom. Chandeliers, decorative fireplace, gold-painted plaster mouldings, charming views of the local Crematorium, the works. And eighteen desks, a tomato sauce bottle in the shape of a tomato and a 42-inch plasma TV that we haven't quite got round to hanging on the wall.

It's all very well working here during the day, but come the evening it's just myself and George, and when he knocks off at 8pm, homeless that I am, it's just me and the internets until beddy-bye-boes time.

So, there I sit, whipping up webloggy goodness for you, dear reader, when the lights dim, and I hear the regular thud - thud - thud of footsteps behind me.

"Meep!" I invariably exclaim.

"Meep!" I say, as I spin round in my office chair, only for the footsteps to cease immediately. I am alone with nothing but the hum of the over-enthusiastic air conditioning.

Pete the Security Guard is elsewhere in the building. I am alone. Alone with a bunch of ghoulies.

It's not as if this place hasn't got any history behind it. There have been a number of castles and stately homes on this site since at least the 13th century. There could be any number of nobles, plague victims or peasants doing their best to give me the willies at this moment in time, and a quick flick through the Yellow Pages confirms my worst fears: Ghostbusters, it turns out, don't actually exist. Arse.

For this, I blame Derek Acorah.

The building I work in is about 150 years old, and was, before our organisation got our hands on it during the last war, a boarding school. There are, in fact, three graves of former pupils in the grounds, which is the very least you can expect for not handing in your homework on time. And let's not forget the number of journalists clubbed to death by typewriters over the years in this place. They're really quite highly strung in the Newsroom, I can tell you for nothing.

So, as another night draws in and the glow fades in the Crematorium chimney, who can tell what another night may bring? Entertain me. Entertain me with your ghost spottings.

Monday, April 23, 2007

On this, St George's Day, when large men with no necks roam around our towns getting very drunk, and abusing waiters in Indian restaurants in honour of some bloke who was almost certainly a foreign himself, I thought I'd take a good, hard look at where I come from.

I am, amongst other things in my mongrel-like genetic make-up, part English, part Irish and (if you've seen my nose, you'll understand) part Jewish.

This means I could turn up at your house at any time, tarmac your driveway, sell you a loan to pay for it, and then be too embarrassed to complain.

But then, with a Scottish name and distant relations from up the Welsh valleys, I could equally be wearing nothing under the kilt, making my sheep-worrying hobby that much easier. And my English side will, of course, fight anybody that disagrees with me.

It's handy coming from such a racial melting pot, as I can disown any part of me as circumstances permit, particularly when it comes to national sporting prowess.

Right now, for example, the England football team are a bunch of over-paid under-achieving arses as compared to the table-topping glory of Northern Ireland under Lawrie Sanchez, himself no stranger to racial confusion, I should think. That is, of course, until the next English sporting triumph, when I'm London-born and proud, guv'nor.

Everybody knows, deep down, that St George's Day is a bit rubbish, revolving in its entirety on the assertion of national pride through vast quantities of drink.

Some well meaning, superbly patriotic blokes with no necks organised a parade through the streets of Weymouth for this year's celebration, but, alas, forgot to tell anybody, and the whole thing bit the dust. With a bit of imagination they could just turn it into a massive Monday lunchtime pub crawl, and nobody would be any the wiser.

My Wikipedia entry - set up a good couple of years ago by the Rikaitch was deleted last week. No skin off my nose - it's a wonder it lasted so long to be perfectly honest.

However, my response to the Wikipedian who refered to me as (and I quote) "a non-notable blogger and journalist" is this: "Get used to running, Mr Clever Bastard - I'm firing up my electric chainsaw, and I've got a very long extension lead."

Friday, April 20, 2007

The kind of pub bullshitter who somehow fixes himself on to your social group, trying his best to impress you and (especially) your lady friends with the not-entirely-believable details of his wonderful life.

The kind of pub bullshitter who puts it about that he was once in the SAS and can kill a man with one simple flick of the wrist; when, if fact, he was thrown out of the Army Cadets for wanking on parade.

The kind of pub bullshitter who tells you that he lives in a penthouse flat in the office complex where he operates his multi-billion pound City trading company; when in fact, he still lives with his mum, and gives her half his dole money as rent.

Our pet pub bullshitter was called Mark. He knew absolutely everything about everything, claimed to ride a Triumph motorbike and live in a stately home in the Berkshire countryside. True, he would always turn up in motorcycle leathers and a sixties-style helmet, but it soon became apparent that he parked his moped round the corner from the pub, a moped he had ridden from his shared council flat. In Bracknell. The stately home in question turned out to be the nearby council-owned South Hill Park Arts Centre, where he was allowed to clean the floors.

Still, he was mostly harmless, and we let him ponce drinks off us for sheer comedy value, and the knowledge that any political argument would end with Mark's frenzied assertion that he would "sort the whole thing out with Michael." That's Michael 'Tarzan' Heseltine, who was a family friend.

Any sporting argument would hinge on whether his personal buddies England manager Bobby Robson or Wales rugby legend J.P.R. Williams would be called into the fray; whilst "Where are you going on your holidays?" wouldn't get past the fact that Onassis was letting him use his pad in Monte Carlo for the week of the Monaco Grand Prix.

My arse, he was.

God help any woman who attracted his attention. The bullshit-o-meter would go off the scale, as he tried, unsuccessfully, to impress her into a date, or onto the end of his (so he said) ten inches of meat.

"The bloody liar", said Eddy, "I saw it in the Gents' the other week. It's tiny."

"So, what were you doing looking at his cock, you enormous Gaylord?"

"Umm… Good question."

So, when he asks of a not unattractive young lady that appeared in the Lounge Bar of our local the question "What do you do?" he gets the answer:

"I'm a student. At St Andrews University in Scotland."

"Really? I can come up to see you in my helicopter, and I'll take you out on the Old Course for a round of golf. I'm a member there."

"Err… it's a public course."

"Did I tell you I've got a helicopter?"

We next saw him three weeks later, a broken wreck. He had taken his 50cc "helicopter" up to see his prey in St Andrews, only to find himself completely stood up, and the throbbing monster between his legs deciding it didn't fancy the 460 mile return trip to Bracknell.

We might have started to feel sorry for Mark there and then, if he had not got it into his head that he was some sort of dashing James Bond secret service figure. The only dashing he ever did was if he was late for the Dole Office, and it was a James Bond operating deep, deep undercover as a hairy biker in a council flat, taking on the evil genius bringing down Western Civilisation by not wiping their feet at South Hill Park.

Q Division hadn't been particularly kind to him. There were no rocket launchers on the front of the moped, and it only transformed into a helicopter in his dreams. But he did have one thing to impress the ladies - his new penis extension.

"I've got a gun," he told anyone who would listen.

Challenged to prove it, he produced an attaché case (not unlike the one I got free with Texaco fuel stamps) and produced a realistic-looking shooter.

"What did I tell you?" he gloated, "Licensed to kill."

The only thing he was licensed to kill, it turned out, was kittens, as the gun was no more real than his helicopter, and he was still a wanker. Proved positve by the other object in his attaché case: this month's copy of Razzle, the gentleman's leisure magazine for skanks.

This didn't stop Mark from whipping his weapon out in public, and it was not long before he was spotted on a spy mission outside Barclays Bank in Bracknell with the thing stuffed in the belt of his trousers.

WOOOMPH! went a dozen very large and heavily-armed coppers, as our poor bullshitting friend was jumped on by several extremely angry and heavily-armed police officers, who set about him in no uncertain manner until he had finished pooing himself.

Eyewitnesses reported increasingly large stains both at the front and the back of his trousers as he was led away; and a short argument between various officers of the law as to who was going to sit in the back of the van with "that smelly bastard" and who would rather walk back to the station, thank you very much.

Patrick Bateman writes: "You said last week that Gunnar Shafer of Kalmar, Sweden managed to change his name to James Bond. I used to work in a dole office and my Monday morning clients included no less than four James Bonds, all by deed poll. One of them told me he wanted to be a secret agent. I got him a job as a security guard. He seemed well pleased."

I could not possibly comment on the true identity of Mr Bateman. Plz to pass the chainsaw.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

When I first started working in this job (or rather, this job's now deceased ancestor) back at the arse end of the 1980s, your post came with an acronym. You lost your name and were simply known as your job title.

I was a "Berk", a Broadcast Reception Coordinator, and I remained a Berk for many, many years.

To make things worse, I genuinely believed my boss was actually called Mr Amos, when, if fact, it stood for Assistant Manager Operational Services and his name was actually Keith. In the old days, the Big Boss used to be known only as GMM. Now he is merely "Chris".

People who have worked here longer than I remember seeing memos which featured long, long lists of acronyms and not a single name. Instead, there would be little notes in the margins such as "APRA - task MMNT and NBOT on this project, GNOOP"

It's a shame they no longer do this, as I have recently become a chief sub-editor after several years as Technical Operations Supervisor. Yes, I was a TOS-ser and proud.

My plan to rename our department Signal Management and Editorial Group cruelly struck down (by a manager who realised his job title would be SMEG Head), I now dream of becoming Producer Electronic News and Information Services.

You: Yes, you: Describe your job as an acronym. Extra points for style, control, damage and aggression. Those of you in Higher Education need not bother, I've done one for you: Anally Retentive Student Emo - ARSE. There. No need to thank me.

And while you're at it, choose a story for tomorrow's Tale of Mirth and Woe. Choose. And choose well. The vote-o quote-os are - for once - 100 per cent genuine.

• Doctors and Nurses: "You appear to have clubbed yourself in the face with a length of wood. I've got the very thing for that."

• Bullshit: "So, what were you doing looking at his cock, you enormous Gaylord?"

• A Trip to Edinburgh: "Oh, ignore her, she'll give you the clap. I've got all my own teeth, you know."

• Grand National: "Jimmy Hill!"*

* I once stood next to the great man in the urinals at Fulham FC's Craven Cottage ground. I can report - and not a word of a chinny reckon - that it's nowhere as big as his chin.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

On the boundless worship of a bloke in a suit with a huge papier mache head

Quite a few years ago, I blagged my way into Reading Festival, essentially so I could see the likes of the mighty New Order and a slightly pre-fame Blur in concert.

With a few hours to burn before the main event, I sidled over to the Comedy Tent, where we were led to expect some bloke who was marginally famous on Channel Four who once ate a whole car, though, truth be told, not all at one sitting.

Alas, we were told that he'd had an accident in rehearsals in which a lightbulb had gone down the wrong way, and that we were to get the emergency back-up act instead. A bloke from Manchester with a huge papier mache head.

Bingo!

It was the first time that I'd ever clapped me eyes on the living legend that is Frank Sidebottom.

Oh. My. God.

It was just him, a puppet version of himself (Little Frank) and a kids' Casio keyboard, which he used to belt out versions of Queen, Smiths and Sex Pistols songs in a dreadful nasal twang.

It was the Best Thing Ever, and I have sought out the genius that is Frank wherever he may be ever since. You have not lived, dear reader, until you have witnessed his epic "Tribute to the genius of Freddie Mercury and Queen and also Kylie". It's up there with the greats. Mozart. Beethoven. Presley. Brotherhood of Man. Sidebottom. Read 'em and weep.

How do you describe Frank Sidebottom? He's some bloke from Timperley with a big papier mache head who says the word "bobbins" a lot, sings truly awful cover versions and harbours the delusion that he will, one day, become a world famous footballer when the Timperley Bigshorts go all the way to the Champions League final. He is, in short, a complete and utter genius.

But then, you cannot adequately describe him without actually experiencing him in his true, lo-fi glory. I urge you, then, to see his spectacular comeback on the Manchester-based local TV station Channel M (Sky 203) where he and his trusty Casio keyboard has his own show. In black and white. He also does the Test Card. Don't ask.

In summary, and you're still going "HUH?!" here (I can tell), a bit of a Frank Sidebottom link dump:

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

My local rag, always on the lookout to fill column inches, is asking readers for their top 10 singles, so it can throw together the music editor's 100 for the town.

It's going to be the Birdie Song, I can tell.

Surprisingly, once you've weeded out the usual Coldplay, Queen and Robbie Williams (not that there's anything wrong with that kind of thing - the new Mental Health Act should sort that little problem out for once and for all) the replies they've put online have rated relatively well on the Scaryduckworth-Lewis Scale of Rating Things for Excellence.

And because I'm a lazy bastard, I've cut-and-pasted my current top ten list onto these pages so you can have a right old laugh at my expense.

Monday, April 16, 2007

It's that time of year again, where the sun is shining, the sky is blue, rabbits are no longer bummy* and the fashion police have decreed - for a thirteenth summer on the trot - that tight, white t-shirts are de rigeur for young ladies. Not that I'm looking, of course.

This all means that the Scaryduckworth-Lewis Method of rating things for excellence is up for its annual review, as we dip into the zeitgeist of all things manky. Your suggestions, then, for 2007 replacements for any of the following.

I mean, whatever happened to Titmuss? And with Church in the family way, there are clearly vacancies at number 15 and Skank Central:

0. Abi Titmuss1. Ann Widdecombe giving you the eye2. Margaret Thatcher leather whip “happy finish” massage3. Clare Short on page three of the Sun4. Vanessa Feltz in a negligee, selling a flash of her pinkness for a packet of chips5. Jade Goody delivering the Reith Lecture in the nip, innit

6. An unshaven Tracey Emin, squatting over a canvas, asking for your help with her next 'art' piece7. The Princess Anne unnamed many-tentacled woe8. Lorraine Kelly taking advantage of Eamonn Holmes' morning glory with a chirpy "Och, there you go then!"9. Cherie Blair strap-on action10. Locked in a cupboard, on a cruise ship, with Charlie Dimmock and her water feature

11. Susie Dent in shiny black rubber mini-dress, looking up swears in the dictionary while Carol Vorderman rubs herself against a bollard for one easy, monthly payment12. Emma Thomspon on a street corner asking for "business"13. Katy Hill and Janet Ellis eating a banana suggestively 14. Felicity Kendall wrapped in clingfilm, with Penelope Keith talking dirty in the background15. Charlotte Church on her knees, begging for forgiveness, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand

16. Konnie Huq in a bath of beans, whilst Zoe Salmon scrubs her back with a french stick17. Kate Humble in a wet T-shirt competition18. Kate Winslet keeping her clothes on, mostly19. Nigella Lawson whipping up a creamy sauce20. Sarah Beeny wrestling Kirstie Allsopp in a paddling pool filled with baby oil

* Alas, our little film production enterprise was rumbled by Mrs Duck, who failed to see the funny side, our protestations that "It's the result of an all-male environment" falling on deaf ears. Which is fair enough, to be honest, and it's a marvel what the introduction of a couple of girlie bunnies will do to otherwise rampantly bummy rabbits.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

TV's Mr Biffo has a book out on Star Wars Day (May the fourth), and after hardly any torture at all, I've agreed to give him a bit of a plug. I have already read the book in question in order to check it for a) crass spelling mistakes and b) the sick-with-laughter quotient and have hereby judged it: excellent.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Somebody has taken to dumping rubbish in the alleyway that runs behind our street. It started off innocently enough - the odd bag of household waste, and a few cuttings from the back garden.

Soon enough, came a clapped-out old microwave oven, followed by a kitchen table and a chair with three legs.

Then, not terribly long ago: bingo!

Whilst I waited for Lucy Minogue to finish sniffing whatever it is dogs sniff on their walkies, my eyes fell upon some likely looking swag. There, not hidden terribly well in a rather overgrown hedge was a bag. A bag that had my scud radar pinging off the meter.

And Lordy, if I didn't turn out to be right, for there, hardly tainted at all by dogs' business was a loosely-tied plastic bag filled with assorted scud magazines. Of course, with hardly a thought towards the welfare of poor, lovely Lucy Minogue, they were snaffled away to my shed for further inspection.

Regular readers may remember my oft-repeated tale of a trip to the rubbish tip that netted me the dubious delights of a DVD entitled "Grannys Cumming 2", hardly the British film industry's finest hour, but a title which involved the less-than-sticky climax of some fat old dear bouncing up and down on top of some poor bloke's wang, whilst he undoubtedly had his thoughts anywhere other than the job in hand.

Not that I watched it. Much. At all.

So, it was with some dread that I peeled open the rain-soaked bag to inspect the true horror of my find.

At this point you'd expect me to recoil in horror at the dubious and incredibly specialist nature of my find, with the bag containing a ten-inch thick pile of magazines detailing such perversions as corporal punishment, BDSM, leather, golden showers and any which kind of filth to which Barking Mad Sharon introduced my good self when I was undergoing my manky old spunker training. A bag which I might well have entitled "Pervert's Delight", and might have made me a small fortune on the open market.

And you'd be wrong.

It was ladyboys.

On the surface, not unattractive young ladies with a penchant for removing their clothes. Underneath, and a couple of pages in: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

"Oh my flippin' Christ," I said to myself, completely forgetting the proximity of my shed to the street where several people were probably standing at the bus stop, "She's got a wang."

Then: "No. Hang on. He's got tits."

If I had been nursing even the remotest of semis to start with, it was now the size and shape of the nozzle on an airbed.

Fair play to the editors of these murky publications - they had at least tried to pad out their magazines with a number of not-made-up-at-all dirty letters, all of which followed a general theme of sexual awakening of a holiday to the Far East, culminating with graphic descriptions in which the protagonists clearly have the time of their lives, despite not knowing whether they're coming or going.

And at the bottom of the bag, one copy of the previous month's Razzle, just to prove there are still people out there who don't know how to download pornography from the internet.

At a complete loss, I tied the bag up and left it in the exact spot in the alleyway I found it. Sick pron in a hedge, as it were.

The next morning, concerned of the welfare of my abandoned filth, I took Lucy Minogue for a suspiciously early walkie to find that it had gone and thank fuckery for that.

In another corner of Weymouth (twinned with Gomorrah) the faintest echo of a scream could be heard.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Before we get to the main feature, he's a couple of things I've seen with my camera-phone (it is also useful as a phone - fancy that!) whilst on my Don't-Give-A-Monkey's week off in Weymouth this week; a week which has seen me roundly thrashed at golf by the boy Scaryduck Junior in a putting shame which will last me a lifetime.

A crocodile's house

Clenched buttocks on a rollercoaster

If this is the result of "You've got to get out more", it would probably be for the best if I stayed indoors for the rest of my life.

Which would be, perhaps, just as bad, seeing as we'd end up churning out stuff like this:

Bummy Rabbit Adventures: Easter Bummy

There is, sad to say, more where that came from.

No Thursday vote-o today, what with it being my Don't-Give-A-Monkey's week off and all that, I can't be arsed to hold a vote. Instead, there will be a carefully selected tale of woe. If there are hedges, needless to say they will be vomited into.

Yes - after yesterday's rant on the phenomenon of 99p / 98p / Lidl stores that is sweeping our once proud nation of shopkeepers, I find myself - rather ironically - in the Weymouth branch of 99p Stores (formerly Courts Furnishings) in search of cheap office supplies.

Yes, I know that makes me a hypocrite of the first order, but if it's any consolation, I did wear a baseball cap especially for the occasion, which I turned back-to-front in the accepted IQ-reducing manner the moment I crossed into Pit of Doom.

"How much is this?" I asked, and immediately felt like a dork.

Clutching my purchase, and narrowly escaping a frisking down by the burly security guard, I fled next door to the 98p Store ("We'll beat ANY price, or we'll double the difference!") to see if they could beat the price on my 99p envelopes. They couldn't, so that's 2p I won't be seeing again.

Luckily, it was Shopmobility day in Weymouth, so the boy and I availed ourselves of an abandoned vehicle that was causing an obstruction at the tills, and led the forces of law and order on a low-speed chase around the Town Centre, running slowly amok outside Superdrug until the batteries ran out.

It was a fair cop.

On the bright side:

Total number of socks and sandals spotted: one.

The message may well be getting across.

A travesty of the Democratic Process

You should know me by now: I'm not one to tell people to vote for me in national awards, because I don't think these things should be reduced to some sort of popularity contest.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Weymouth, lucky for me, is pikey shopping central, with all the main pikey shopping brands in the town centre. We have an Aldi, a Lidl and even a Wilkos that won't stop growing. Good Lord, there's even a Matalan for all your pikey clothes needs, and something called Shoe Zone if your idea of hip, happening fashion goes as far as wearing stuff on your feet. Then we have the Brucie Bonus of dozens of tat shops on the sea front that sell the expected rock, lucky bingo cards and 'Souvenir of Weymouth' sex aids.

If you like shops, and you're a pikey, then the message is clear: come to Weymouth. Cheap parking.

However, as you go further into the town centre, past the frightening looking Dorset Fried Chicken (What's the secret ingredient? Turnips?), where even charity shops fear to tread you eventually reach the bargain basement...

It goes like this: Weymouth has a pikey shop on the main street called The 99p Shop, where everything is 99p.

Recently, another shop opened next door. It is called.... The 98p Shop, and undercuts its neighbour on every single piece of bankrupt stock and useless tat to the tune of one penny.

The shop next door, we note, is empty. Heaven knows what's going to open there. Somebody said it was once a brance of Pound Land, but they couldn't take the competition.

This place is going downhill fast, and we foresee a time, when, right down at the rough end of town, we cross the Pikey Shop event horizon and The Half-a-Farthing Shop will open, selling nothing but dead cats and used sawdust. Two weeks later, another shop will open next door that actually pays you to take away their entire supply of German Army surplus shirts of the kind that only students and hippies wear.

This will, of course, be situated next to the busiest shop in town: Cash Converters, the Bring and Buy Sale of choice for heroin addicts.

Of course, Weymouth is not entirely a pikey-shopper's paradise. We've got a rather large and swanky Debenhams, built over the site of England's first Bubonic Plague graveyard. And boy, do they get loads of free publicity in the Dorset Echo. Nigh on every day there's a 'Drug Addict admits shoplifting from Debenhams' story, which just goes to show that even the terminally stupid and wasted know quality when they see it.

I have put my theory of pikey shopping to several work colleagues and email correspondents, and have come to this conclusion:

"Could be worse. You could live in Didcot. There's a sign over the door that reads 'Warning: May contain traces of nutter'."

Which is fair enough, to be honest.

* I know what you're thinking: "The Duck's turned racist again". Pikey in this instance is more-or-less interchangable with the term "chav". You know the kind of person, so whatchoo lookin' at you cahnt?

Friday, April 06, 2007

In 1978, Kris Kristofferson and Ali McGraw starred in the movie 'Convoy' - a frankly poor quality effort about a renegade trucker Rubber Duck and his efforts to evade the long arm of the law whilst making a series of deliveries for Tescos. This came on the back of the 1975 novelty song which topped the charts, also about a renegade trucker called Rubber Duck, the only difference being that he was driving for Sainsburys and the whole fuss was over an overdue library book.

Of course, every dipstick in the British Isles suddenly wanted in on the glamorous truckers' life and that meant getting your filthy paws on a CB radio. CB radios which were illegal at the time.

Naturally, my brother pestered my parents about getting a unit every birthday and Christmas for three years, but fine, upstanding law-abiding citizens that they were, they refused. They had also refused to buy the pair of us skateboards on the flimsy excuse that we had to show how committed we were to the idea by getting hold of our own safety gear first. It was a Mexican stand-off that lasted for decades, and free of the shackles of parents, I finally bought my own at the age of 35. I gave it to the boy Scaryduck Jr.

Getting back to the point, the British government relented in November 1981, and Nigel's pre-Christmas badgering for his dream CB Radio began in earnest.

Within days they had caved in, as we discovered a brand new hand-held CB Radio in the parents' poor quality Christmas Present Hiding Space, at the back of my mother's wardrobe, behind a large collection of boots.

Of course, we should have left it there as a surprise for Christmas, but there was no holding us back. All of Nigel's mates were already '10-4-ing for a hairy copy' and 'breaker-breaking' like imbeciles, and he wanted in with the in-crowd straight away.

The only problem was that we were both of limited means and the monster took a massive TEN AA batteries, which it then proceeded to drain within seconds. Our entire paper round income went into feeding the thing - Duracells were well out of our range, and Ever Readys seemed to be made out of nothing but cardboard and fresh air. If only he had looked further back in the wardrobe - he might have found the mains adaptor.

Naturally, it all went horribly wrong. Only able to use the thing secretly while parents were out at work, Nige found himself gassing away to Matty next door (when it might have been far easier just to go round to his place) when Matty said:

At last, Christmas came and went, and, armed with a newly purchased CB Licence we were allowed to use the thing officially. The first thing Nige bought was a new aerial, specially designed to hide the fact that he'd knackered the built-in jobbie. It was hardly worth the effort.

All we got was Matty next door, Squaggy and John down the road, and Glenn from the next estate, who used an illegal amplifier and swamped the entire forty channels for miles whenever his unit was switched on.

Once you had got a newbie with the old 'Could you go down to channel 14 and crank out for my mate Skin?' gag, there was not much joy to be had.

Oh yes, we would laugh as another idiot would turn up and start calling out for 'One Four Skin'; or perhaps we would pretend we were truckers cruisin' up the 'superslab' (that's the M4 motorway to normal people) on the look-out for 'local pussy' to fool the easily impressed, but it soon became clear that CB Radio was, in fact, shit.

We blamed Glenn entirely. He was always on the air, always boring us stupid and talking over your conversations (usually limited to 'What rig you packin'?' and 'Could you go down to channel 14 and crank out for my mate Skin?') and nobody could get a word in edgeways. He would have to be sorted out.

Not a problem. The entire CB world was, until then, a desperately male environment, filled to the brim with desperate males. So, we got Russell's big sister on air with the oh-so-subtle handle "Big Tits", and taking it slow, smooth and steady and biding our time, won Glenn's trust enough to set up a red hot date. It took all of fifteen minutes.

Within half an hour, there he was, in the car park behind The Big Fry (it's still there, Scary-spotters) with a rolled-up copy of Daily Express waiting for his 'eyeball' with the luscious Big Tits. All he got, alas, was a completely different bunch of tits, who picked him up and threw him in the Grundon. A Grundon filled with The Big Fry's greasy leftovers.

"You bastards!" echoed a voice from the inside of the skip, "It's horrible in here. You're wrecking my chances with Big Tits!"

The only Big Tits he ever got were those on page three of The Sun on his paper round. He was in no state to see her in any case, stinking of fish, grease and dead saveloy he was rank enough as it was, without:

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCH!"

He told his mum, who shouted at everybody for weeks. Then, sadly she got a taste for Cretin Band Radio, and we couldn't shut her up either.

Then, everybody got mobile phones, and thank God for that.

In the name of research I listened in to the CB bands recently, and it's all dickheads, kids going 'One Four Skin' and mongs playing country and western music thinking they're driving a truck through the Deep South. And Glenn's mum, wittering on.

Choose, then, from this little lot, with showbiz-tinged vote-o quote-os courtesy of the poor, dead House of Lies:

* Doctors and Nurses: The next James Bond movie “The World Never Dies Twice Dr No Finger My Pussy Galore” will star TV’s Dale Winton as super-spy 007.

* Bullshit: The latest Hollywood blockbuster in the making is Moby Beaver, one man’s obsessive hunt for the Great White Aquatic Mammal that gnawed off his wooden leg. Starring Jean-Claude van Damme, Sandra Bullock and Graham the Wonder Beaver.

* Cretin Band: The world of show-business has been thrown into turmoil with the news that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are not in fact teenage twin sisters. Mary-Kate is, in fact, a thirty-seven year old veteran of straight-to-video movies; while Ashley (or to give “her” real name - Brian) is a former bricklayer from Blackburn, Lancs who enjoys ferret racing and ecky thump.

* A Trip to Edinburgh: High society magazine Hello! is to produce a special edition for readers in Yorkshire. It’ll be called Eyup! A further picture-heavy version will be produced for Chavs, entitled "What you looking at, Cahnt!"

Scud, alas, is exactly what you think it is: an in depth investigation into the development and deployment of the Soviet SS-1 ballistic missile in various theatres of modern warfare. You wouldn't want to read it.

You know the drill by now - your choice, comments box, along with your detailed reasoning as to why I should never attempt to write poetry again.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Last night I found myself saying that one phrase no man on God's Earth should ever utter. That one sentence that results in hour upon hour of shouting, screaming, physical abuse and - much , much later - a dreadful skull-cracking headache.

"Yes, I'll help you set up your wireless network."

Just don't.

This well-meaning gesture aimed at helping some blameless friend or relative in need do their shopping in front of Coronation Street will almost certainly, some eight hours later, end thussly:

"JUST CONNECT YOU FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING CUUUUUUUUUUUNT!"

and

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'UNABLE TO ASSIGN ADDRESS' YOU USELESS, USELESS FUCKERRRRRRR?!"

and

"PASSWORD? PASSWORD? THERE ISN'T A FUCKING BASTARD FUCKING PASSWORD YOU MONG OF A MACHINE!"

and

"Have you got a hammer?" "Why?" "I'm going to SMASH THE FUCKING THING TO FUCKING PIECES AND FORCE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM VIOLENTLY UP YOUR RECTUM, Aunty Violet."

And Aunty Violet will then say: "Actually, it was only an idea. I hardly use the thing, anyway"; just before a brief, tragic train of events are set in motion that will alomst certainly see you written out of her will, and a body eventually turning up in a bathful of quicklime, clutching the smashed remains of a wireless router.

Or, you can just give up, and slink off home hours later, utterly defeated by nerd technology.

Ah, catharsis. That's why I set up this site.

Now: Does anybody know how to set up a wireless network? No reason, I just want to inflict pain.

News just in: I spent so long last night on this wireless non-network, I've only just realised that I missed the penultimate episode of Life on Mars. ARSE! ARSE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARSE!

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

When ET: The Extra Terrestrial came out, they were queuing round the block to see it at the ABC Cinema in Reading. While I had queued for Star Wars, Superman and Star Trek, this was one blockbuster I somehow managed to avoid.

This evasion lasted for some fifteen years, when I finally caught up with the film as an adult. I blubbed like a girl, but knew, deep down that the cute little girl would grow up to be a drug-addled nympho who they will probably bury in a Y-shaped coffin. A modern - if flawed - classic that every serious filmgoer should see at least once.

I write this because I have finally caught up with yet another of those films I managed to miss the first time around this very weekend.

All my friends saw A Nightmare on Elm Street at the cinema when it came out in 1984, and they were, frankly scared shitty by the experience. I’m told that several didn’t sleep for days, afeared that Freddie Kruger was waiting for them on the other side to rip their lungs out and piss over their still twitching corpse.

With a reputation that this was a truly frightening and original horror flick, which took the genre to new, pant-pissingly terrifying levels, I put on a brave face, told everybody I’d seen it, and lied through my teeth.

And so, Sunday evening, with nothing better to watch, the fragrant Mrs Duck and I sat down in front of Channel Five and prepared to die of abject terror. Twenty three years I've waited. It had better be up there with Citizen Kane and Apocalypse Now.

And it was. They're hideously over-rated, too.

What a load of old shite.

I’ve been more frightened by my kids on a sugar rush. Wes Craven? John Craven, more like. Mrs Duck and I haven’t laughed so much in our lives. And we were the people who paid good money to see Spaceballs.

* Botched jump cuts where they swapped the actor for an unconvincing dummy.

* Clearly visible mattresses in fall scenes.

* Laughable special effects - such as the phone with the tongue coming out of it - which were clearly purchased in Toys R Us.

* And of course, this being the film that made a star out of Robert Englund, the man himself spending the entire movie running around in a horror mask going “Raaaaargh!”

I LOLed. We both LOLed. We LOLed out loud, and our fits of laughter at the crappy “twist” ending had the kids out of bed asking us what all the roffling was about. We told them. They LOLed, too.

The only good bits were, of course, a pre-fame Johnny Depp being rubbish, and the fact you saw the female star's pert, peachy norks. Mrs Duck didn’t agree. She thought it was all arse.

So, there’s one illusion well and truly shattered.

What then, have you avoided for your entire life? And like the suicidal boy made entirely out of balloons - were you ultimately let down?

Monday, April 02, 2007

I have railed before on these pages on some of the daft schemes they come up with round here.

For example, it was I who drew the world's attention to the accident waiting to happen when they built Monkey World, the Tank Museum and the Winfrith Nuclear Research Centre within two miles of each other.

I warned them and warned them in both the local and national press of the consequences, and what happened? They laughed in my face, yet it was I who was proved right:

And did they learn? Oh no, they didn't.

Now I hear of plans to hollow out the Isle of Portland (not three miles away from the House of Duck) and fill it to the brim with natural gas, whilst, just for the comedy value, parking a bunch of nuclear submarines outside and increasing the local prison population to bursting point.

Absolutely nothing can go wrong, they tell us, whilst giving us an instructional leaflet and a handful of iodine pills.

Yeah, right. All it will need is an unguarded spark from one of those cousin-marrying window-lickers up on the island, and it'll be 'Goodnight Vienna' to the lot of us, Dorset shining like a thousand suns for about a thousandth of a second, before disappearing of the face of the Earth in a mushroom cloud.

I'll be OK. I've got these iodine pills.

Come to think of it, my arch-nemesis Useless Workshy Cunt of a Builder still lives up on Portland, and he's got a filthy, dreadful finger-staining roll-your-own cigarette habit; which could, with a following wind, be the catalyst for the largest explosion this planet has ever seen. Excellent!

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